ID - Scholasticteacher.scholastic.com/products/id/pdf/materials/ID_Anthology_L4.pdfID voice:vision:identity TM voice / voiss / n: how you say it. vision / vizh-uhn / n: how you see

ID voice:vision:identityTM

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n: w

ho you are. voice / voiss / n

: how

you say it. vision

/ vizh-uh

n / n

: how

you see it. identity

Photographs © 2010: Adrian Kinloch: 174; Alamy Images: 162, 163 (Jaubert Bernard), 18 (Blend Images), 12, 13 (David Grossman), 40 (Visions of America, LLC); Courtesy of Alfred W. Tatum: 15; AP Images: 76 (Tammie Arroyo), 140 (Marcus Bleasdale/VII), 157 (Christophe Ena), 158 (Frank Franklin II), 171 (Villard/Niviere/Sipa); Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY/The Jesús Colón Papers: 87; Blue Flower Arts, LLC/Peter Dressel: 121; Cartoonist Group/Chip Bok/Creators Syndicate: 138, 139; CGTextures.com: cover; Courtesy of the Chicago Defender: 122; Corbis Images: 187 (Mark Costantini/San Francisco Chronicle), 137 (Christopher Felver); Courtesy of David Baraza: 37; Getty Images: 55 (Ulf Andersen), 28, 29 (Bloomberg), 117 (Mel Curtis), 115 (Steven Errico), 176 (Tom Grill), 32, 33 (Dorothy Low/Contour), 132 (Peter Read Miller/Sports Illustrated), 34 (Robert Nickelsberg), 193 (Johnny Nunez); Courtesy of Indiana University: 60, 61, 66, 67; iStockphoto: 102, 103 (Jacom Stephens), 154, 155 (Jarek Szymanski); Courtesy of Katherine Gilbert-Espada: 128; Monty Stilson: 190 foreground; NEWSCOM: 183 (Douglas R. Clifford/St. Petersburg Times), 96 (Brian Kersey/UPI), 31 (Mary Schroeder/Detroit Free Press), 90, 180; Panos Pictures/Giacomo Pirozzi: 152, 153; PhotoDisc, Inc.: 190 background; Redux Pictures: 104 (Daniel Bishop/laif), 54 (Kevin Moloney/The New York Times); Scholastic Inc.: 110; Shutterstock, Inc.: 46, 47 (Adam Borkowski), 78 (Danilo Ducak), 98 (Craig Hill), 92, 93 (photooiasson), 127 (Ben Smith), 75 (James Steidl), 166, 167 (withGod); Courtesy of Steve Goldman: 177; SuperStock, Inc.: 172, 173 (De Agostini), 124, 125.

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Acknowledgments appear on pages 206–207, which constitute an extension of this copyright page.

Copyright © 2010 by Scholastic Inc.

All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN-13: 978-0-545-20855-0ISBN-10: 0-545-20855-6

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ID voice:vision:identityTM

voice / voiss / n: h

ow you say it. v

ision / vizh

-uhn / n

: how


/ eye-den-ti-tee /

n: w

ho you are. voice / voiss / n

: how

you say it. vision

/ vizh-uh

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: how


SCHOLASTIC INC.New York • Toronto • London • Auckland

Sydney • New Delhi • Hong Kong


To Alfred Tatum, whose vision challenges all of us to get our voices on record.


gives voice

to people whose voices aren’t often

heard. The writers whose works are

featured here were compelled to get

their own voices on record. In some

cases they were literally writing for

their lives.

Through their writing these authors

defi ne themselves, become resilient,

engage others, and build capacity.

In this way, they may inspire and

empower you, the reader, to do

the same:

Pick up a pen and WRITE.

ID


CHOP “I came into this world whole / and look what happened to me.” —a poem by Alfred W. Tatum

Why I Write Poetry —from an essay by Kevin Powell

SO I AIN’T NO GOOD GIRL “I try not to sweat Raheem when he gets a little rough with me. He’s the cutest boy in school. I can’t keep him on no short leash.” —a short story by Sharon Flake

Love Is Just Complicated —a poem by Tupac Shakur

A PLACE WITHOUT SHAME “Fear runs screaming out of the house. Self-doubt crawls out the window. Confidence dances with all who’ll have her.” —a poem by David Baraza

Shoes —from a memoir by Gary Soto

INDIAN EDUCATION“The high school I play for is nicknamed the ‘Indians,’ and I’m probably the only actual Indian ever to play for a team with such a mascot.” —a short story by Sherman Alexie

The Power of a Joke —from an autobiography by Dick Gregory

6

12……

16……

18……

32……

34……

38……

40……

56……

define self


40 INDIAN EDUCATION

INDIAN


FIRST GRADE

My hair was too short and my U.S. Govern-

ment glasses were horn-rimmed, ugly, and all

that fi rst winter in school, the other Indian

boys chased me from one corner of the play-

ground to the other. They pushed me down,

buried me in the snow until I couldn’t breathe,

thought I’d never breathe again.

They stole my glasses and threw them over

my head, around my outstretched hands, just

beyond my reach, until someone tripped me and

sent me falling again, facedown in the snow.

DEFINE SELF 41

N EDUCATIONThe high school I play for

is nicknamed the “Indians,” and I’m probably the only actual Indian ever to play for a team

with such a mascot.


I was always falling down; my Indian name

was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody

Nose or Steal-His-Lunch. Once, it was Cries-

Like-a-White-Boy, even though none of us

had seen a white boy cry.

Then it was a Friday morning recess and

Frenchy SiJohn threw snowballs at me while the

rest of the Indian boys tortured some other top-

yogh-yaught kid, another weakling. But Frenchy

was confi dent enough to torment me all by

himself, and most days I would have let him.

But the little warrior in me roared to life that

day and knocked Frenchy to the ground, held

his head against the snow, and punched him so

hard that my knuckles and the snow made

symmetrical bruises on his face. He almost

looked like he was wearing war paint.

But he wasn’t the warrior. I was. And I chanted

It’s a good day to die, it’s a good day to die, all the

way down to the principal’s offi ce.

42 INDIAN EDUCATION


SECOND GRADE

Betty Towle, missionary teacher, redheaded

and so ugly that no one ever had a puppy crush

on her, made me stay in for recess fourteen

days straight.

“Tell me you’re sorry,” she said.

“Sorry for what?” I asked.

“Everything,” she said and made me stand

straight for fi fteen minutes, eagle-armed with

books in each hand. One was a math book; the

other was English. But all I learned was that

gravity can be painful.

For Halloween I drew a picture of her riding

a broom with a scrawny cat on the back. She said

that her God would never forgive me for that.

Once, she gave the class a spelling test but set

me aside and gave me a test designed for junior

high students. When I spelled all the words

right, she crumpled up the paper and made me

eat it.

DEFINE SELF 43


“You’ll learn respect,” she said.

She sent a letter home with me that told my

parents to either cut my braids or keep me home

from class. My parents came in the next day and

dragged their braids across Betty Towle’s desk.

“Indians, indians, indians.” She said it without

capitalization. She called me “indian, indian,

indian.”

And I said, Yes, I am. I am Indian. Indian, I am.

THIRD GRADE

My traditional Native American art career

began and ended with my very fi rst portrait:

Stick Indian Taking a Piss in My Backyard.

As I circulated the original print around the

classroom, Mrs. Schluter intercepted and con-

fi scated my art.

Censorship, I might cry now. Freedom of

expression, I would write in editorials to the

tribal newspaper.

44 INDIAN EDUCATION


In third grade, though, I stood alone in the

corner, faced the wall, and waited for the

punishment to end.

I’m still waiting.

FOURTH GRADE

“You should be a doctor when you grow up,”

Mr. Schluter told me, even though his wife, the

third grade teacher, thought I was crazy beyond

my years. My eyes always looked like I had just

hit-and-run someone.

“Guilty,” she said. “You always look guilty.”

“Why should I be a doctor?” I asked Mr.

Schluter.

“So you can come back and help the tribe. So

you can heal people.”

That was the year my father drank a gallon

of vodka a day and the same year that my

mother started two hundred different quilts but

never fi nished any. They sat in separate, dark

DEFINE SELF 45


places in our HUD house and wept savagely.

I ran home after school, heard their Indian

tears, and looked in the mirror. Doctor Victor, I

called myself, invented an education, talked to

my refl ection. Doctor Victor to the emergency room.

FIFTH GRADE

I picked up a basketball for the fi rst time and

made my fi rst shot. No. I missed my fi rst shot,

missed the basket completely, and the ball

landed in the dirt and sawdust, sat there just

like I had sat there only minutes before.

But it felt good, that ball in my hands, all those

possibilities and angles. It was mathematics,

geometry. It was beautiful.

At that same moment, my cousin Steven

Ford sniffed rubber cement from a paper bag

and leaned back on the merry-go-round. His

ears rang, his mouth was dry, and everyone

seemed so far away.

46 INDIAN EDUCATION


But it felt good, that buzz in his head, all those

colors and noises. It was chemistry, biology. It

was beautiful.

Oh, do you remember those sweet, almost

innocent choices that the Indian boys were

forced to make?

SIXTH GRADE

Randy, the new Indian kid from the white

town of Springdale, got into a fi ght an hour after

he fi rst walked into the reservation school.

Stevie Flett called him out, called him a squaw-

man, called him a pussy, and called him a punk.

Randy and Stevie, and the rest of the Indian

boys, walked out into the playground.

“Throw the fi rst punch,” Stevie said as they

squared off.

“No,” Randy said.

“Throw the fi rst punch,” Stevie said again.

“No,” Randy said again.

DEFINE SELF 47


“Throw the fi rst punch!” Stevie said for the

third time, and Randy reared back and pitched

a knuckle fastball that broke Stevie’s nose.

We all stood there in silence, in awe.

That was Randy, my soon-to-be fi rst and best

friend, who taught me the most valuable lesson

about living in the white world: Always throw

the fi rst punch.

SEVENTH GRADE

I leaned through the basement window of the

HUD house and kissed the white girl who would

later be raped by her foster-parent father, who

was also white. They both lived on the reser-

vation, though, and when the headlines and

stories fi lled the papers later, not one word was

made of their color.

Just Indians being Indians, someone must have

said somewhere and they were wrong.

But on the day I leaned through the basement

48 INDIAN EDUCATION


window of the HUD house and kissed the white

girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my

entire tribe. I held my lips tight against her lips,

a dry, clumsy, and ultimately stupid kiss.

But I was saying good-bye to my tribe, to all

the Indian girls and women I might have loved,

to all the Indian men who might have called

me cousin, even brother.

I kissed that white girl and when I opened my

eyes, she was gone from the reservation, and

when I opened my eyes, I was gone from the

reservation, living in a farm town where a

beautiful white girl asked my name.

“Junior Polatkin,” I said, and she laughed.

After that, no one spoke to me for another

fi ve hundred years.

EIGHTH GRADE

At the farm town junior high, in the boys’

bathroom, I could hear voices from the girls’

DEFINE SELF 49


bathroom, nervous whispers of anorexia and

bulimia. I could hear the white girls’ forced

vomiting, a sound so familiar and natural to me

after years of listening to my father’s hangovers.

“Give me your lunch if you’re just going to

throw it up,” I said to one of those girls once.

I sat back and watched them grow skinny

from self-pity.

Back on the reservation, my mother stood in

line to get us commodities. We carried them

home, happy to have food, and opened the

canned beef that even the dogs wouldn’t eat.

But we ate it day after day and grew skinny

from self-pity.

There is more than one way to starve.

Sharing dark skin doesn’t necessarily make

two men brothers.

50 INDIAN EDUCATION


NINTH GRADE

At the farm town high school dance, after a

basketball game in an overheated gym where I

had scored twenty-seven points and pulled

down thirteen rebounds, I passed out during a

slow song.

As my white friends revived me and prepared

to take me to the emergency room where doctors

would later diagnose my diabetes, the Chicano

teacher ran up to us.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s that boy been

drinking? I know all about these Indian kids.

They start drinking real young.”

Sharing dark skin doesn’t necessarily make

two men brothers.

TENTH GRADE

I passed the written test easily and nearly

fl unked the driving, but still received my

Washington State driver’s license on the same

DEFINE SELF 51


day that Wally Jim killed himself by driving his

car into a pine tree.

No traces of alcohol in his blood, good job,

wife and two kids.

“Why’d he do it?” asked a white Washington

State trooper.

All the Indians shrugged their shoulders,

looked down at the ground.

“Don’t know,” we all said, but when we look

in the mirror, see the history of our tribe in our

eyes, taste failure in the tap water, and shake

with old tears, we understand completely.

Believe me, everything looks like a noose if

you stare at it long enough.

ELEVENTH GRADE

Last night I missed two free throws which

would have won the game against the best team

in the state. The farm town high school I play

for is nicknamed the “Indians,” and I’m prob-

52 INDIAN EDUCATION


ably the only actual Indian ever to play for a

team with such a mascot.

This morning I pick up the sports page and

read the headline: Indians Lose Again.

Go ahead and tell me none of this is supposed

to hurt me very much.

TWELFTH GRADE

I walk down the aisle, valedictorian of this

farm town high school, and my cap doesn’t fi t

because I’ve grown my hair longer than it’s ever

been. Later, I stand as the school board chair-

man recites my awards, accomplishments, and

scholarships.

I try to remain stoic for the photographers as

I look toward the future.

Back home on the reservation, my former

classmates graduate: a few can’t read, one or two

are just given attendance diplomas, most look

forward to the parties. The bright students are

DEFINE SELF 53


ID

54

shaken, frightened, because they don’t know

what comes next.

They smile for the photographer as they look

back toward tradition.

The tribal newspaper runs my photograph

and the photograph of my former classmates

side by side.

POSTSCRIPT: CLASS REUNION

Victor said, “Why should we organize a

reservation high school reunion? My grad-

uating class has a reunion every weekend at the

Powwow Tavern.”

Sherman Alexie


SHERMAN ALEXIE

BORN: October 7, 1966

GREW UP: Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington.

UPROOTED: Left the reservation for high school, where he was the only Indian besides the school mascot.

REBIRTH: Got sober after his fi rst poetry collection, The Business of Fancydancing, was accepted

for publication.

HIGH PRAISE: Won the National Book Award for his young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

ROAD NOT TAKEN: Alexie planned to become a doctor until he

fainted several times in human anatomy class.

WEBSITE: fallsapart.com

HE SAYS:

“If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one’s chances of survival increase with each book one reads.”

about th

e auth

or

DEFINE SELF 55


THE POWER OF A JOKE

I got picked on a lot around the

neighborhood; skinniest kid on the

block, the poorest, the one without a

Daddy. I guess that’s when I fi rst began

to learn about humor, the power of a

joke . . .

I don’t know just when, I started to

fi gure it out. [The other kids] were

going to laugh anyway, but if I made

the jokes, they’d laugh with me, instead

of at me. I’d get the kids off my back,

on my side. So I’d come off that porch

talking about myself.

56 THE POWER OF A JOKE


“Hey, Gregory, get your ass over

here. Want you to tell me and Herman

how many kids sleep in your bed.”

“Googobs of kids in my bed, man,

when I get up to pee in the middle of

the night gotta leave a bookmark so I

don’t lose my place.”

Dick Gregory (1932– ) Comedian and civil rights activist

DEFINE SELF 57


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ID - Scholasticteacher.scholastic.com/products/id/pdf/materials/ID_Anthology_L4.pdfID voice:vision:identity TM voice / voiss / n: how you say it. vision / vizh-uhn / n: how you see